Sadness Lies in a Bowling Alley

The neon lights dart along the burning darkness, and liquor lingers by his lips. The taste is familiar, though on his twentieth birthday, maybe he stammered it down with much more authority. It felt like Chanyeol had no more secrets, because finally, being drunk for him was allowed. He didn’t have to shower himself in cologne afterwards, or convince Kai to make him do so if he was already too much of a wreck, because it was all allowed.

Chanyeol was allowed to lose it while 2NE1’s ‘I’m The Best’ played by the background, and he was allowed to be asked by pretty girls to share drinks. Not tequilas, but convenience store beers in Martini glasses. The best kind, you know?

Though it isn’t actually what means being twenty.

Let’s re-track, five years ago. When teachers asked this scrawny kid for a detailed example of the future he’d want. When adults looked at him straight in the eyes, his ears big and his arms gawky – awkward teens – and they asked him, ‘can you get your grades straight?’ Chanyeol never closed his eyes and only looked up at those kind of people. The ones already in their twenties, telling children to be good for the future that seems so vague and so full of .

But he’d answer, wanting to be a proof of promise. ‘I’ll be successful. You’ll see me like Sung Si Kyung. A good singer.’

Oh, look at that. Dreams don’t come true.

“Being twenty , I can only wish you luck, tall friend.” Baekhyun tries to swing his arm over Chanyeol’s shoulders, and fails miserably due to the height difference.

And Chanyeol can only take in, or, inhale more of that convenience store beer in a tequila glass if more was even possible for the tenth shot. Baekhyun’s surprised his stomach hasn’t exploded, for Chanyeol is a living stick, he’s surprised as well.

“It’s like, you need a job, but you don’t have one. You need a house, but you’re at your parent’s. And eventually, they force you out after one year.” Baekhyun breaks down all that Chanyeol expects being twenty. College was one thing, job was another. Plus houses and the ‘being on your own’ concept. His mother surely minds that Chanyeol still hasn’t had a job. It’s all that she asks and talks about.

“Do you have a job?” Chanyeol had the tone of his mother, and it reminded him – so scarily reminded him – her voice. Chanyeol looks hazily at Baekhyun, whom was still looking at Minseok. He’s jealous, Chanyeol could tell. And Minseok was trying to get him jealous. Poor Luhan, who still has feelings for Minseok after that incident, and whom Minseok is smiling at right now.

“For ’s sakes, Baekhyun, he’s practically calling you over for in the bathroom.”

“We had a fight, okay?” Baekhyun sighs.

Chanyeol looks down, up, and everywhere. This party is boring. Sure, there were people dancing. People talking and flirting (Minseok and Luhan), but it’s unlike parties on the first day Baekhyun, Kai and Chanyeol found this small bowling alley.

It was after Kai’s sister, and how she left notes and all, and never came back. And the only thing that made Kai even lift his head, was this bowling alley. Maybe it was this too. The fact that it’s small and yet so spacious. A backyard playground for sad drunkards in their teens. How cliché could it get, but this is where mostly bad memories lie and how they healed.

And Baekhyun and Chanyeol made sure to make Kai win that day.

“How’s Kai? No word from her sister?” Baekhyun looks around, averting his gaze from Minseok. Chanyeol tries to think more of this place. What it means to them. What lies behind bowling balls and neon lights.

“Nothing,” Chanyeol gulps down more beer.

Something that’s covered underneath here – sadness. How could Chanyeol ever miss that.

“we all know she’s not coming back.”

Chanyeol liked Kai’s sister.

She was five years older, five times more successful than they can ever be. Her hair was black and her eyes as well. The skin by her ribs slowly came swollen, her fingers shortened day by day until they kept clutching into fist. The day that woman, the day that thing bewitched Chanyeol, leaving him a dwelling kiss on the cheek and a small whisper: ‘don’t tell Kai’, she disappeared.

Notes upon tables that didn't matter and mostly for everyone that knew her to be the girl that laughs all giddy, they were notes that didn't make sense if you knew her.

If you've been in a coffee shop with her, telling her secrets you've made up on a rainy day. Because actually, that was all you needed to do to know her.

Though, Chanyeol can't be so sure now.

"You're Jongin's friend, aren't you?" She says. The essence of black coffee that can't match up to her eyes made her seem too far from Chanyeol's age. Yet, he still didn't mind, or didn't want to mind the five years she's gone through earlier than him.

And so the introduction goes.

But, where did it start? Where did they trail off cliched conversations? Chanyeol can't quite remember, but it's somewhere between the words drunk and sad. Maybe that's why he's so attatched to both of those things.

Oh,

it was here.

"Let's say that I'm drunk." Chanyeol didn't know where it would lead to. Whether or not her words will spin him around right on her palms. It was one of the things he didn't want to mind once again. Maybe from the start, he's stolen more than two glances at the girl always behind Jongin.

"Okay," Chanyeol grumbles, playing with his palms on his ripped jeans that he once thought was 'style'.

"You've found me, just like this. Do I seem that sad?" The coffee did not have any trace of liquor. But from the start, she had that scent. That unmistakable scent, and that made her look even sadder. Even without her drowsy red eyes, and her lips curved lethally to a smile. But Chanyeol looks at her, her sad sight.

He answers, "You do." and she laughs, though not by much.

"If I seem sadder than this, and you found me in a more pitiful state, what would you do?" She says this line that is lighting for Chanyeol; always striking him. 'You found me,'

And Chanyeol began to know where it would end up. It wasn't like he was an innocent nineteen year old. In fact, maybe she knew that as well. She knew that he knows more of the world than any other nineteen year old could. They just didn't bet on the destruction, or foresee how much damage it could cause for both people involved. It was more than just tears, actually. With her, it was always more than it just seems.

"I'd heal you."

"Chanyeol," This wasn't the time to call him Kai. At times like these when his eyes look the same as her's, at times like these when he's manifested into something, a replica, he resembles her so much that Chanyeol's chest hurts, he's Jongin. The friend that's been there since Fifth Grade and the friend that kissed Chanyeol twice on Seventh Grade just for kicks. He's just Jongin, not Kai. Because his hands are gripping Chanyeol's collar like it was a grip of life, and Jongin's eyes glare at him like Chanyeol's just obliterated his world.

This was Jongin, in a sober state, holding Chanyeol whom stumbles over Jongin's punch as he can still smell the three bottles of soju he's took.

"what the did you do to my sister?"

Nothing was decided that day. It was simply instances that were amiss, and puzzle pieces left incomplete for too long. What the did he do to Jongin's sister? Or the right question, what the did Jongin's sister do to Chanyeol?

Because Chanyeol's messed up like this, with only the bowling alley to make him strike a few, that was the most biggest achievements in his life. To escape the dreaded gutter balls, and to escape the title 'Miss King' for always taking the path away from the pins. It was all after that woman aged twenty four lost her boots on a rainy day. And Chanyeol just happened to have extras, like it was fate, but they were never actually one for believers.

The coffee shop was open, so they went inside. Had latte, but she had black coffee - a woman indeed. And had a few talks, and some exchanges of looks.

They were tired and drowsy. The rain got to their shoulders and feet. Especially with her's being bare. Though it wasn't like Jongin's sister was a cougar.

But was some kind of option on a rainy day. Yes, they had . Actually, not . Maybe just some kisses and some touching in a hotel with red lighting. But for Chanyeol afterwards, it felt fast and too heated to be called 'love making', or whatever the Baekhyun calls it. But it felt like so much more even if it wasn't. It felt less than a second even if for her, it was just a brush past never to include too long in her life.

"I loved your sister. It was love, Jongin. Not and- and lust. Believe me, I wish it was, and I wish you could just punch me another time for it being lust, but it's not." It wasn't that Chanyeol remembers how her skin felt and how she looked at him so much, it almost drowns Chanyeol now. But he really does remember. Every second and every part, how it swells and causes Chanyeol to set fires, how she makes him miserable.

He remembers. "I loved your sister, Jongin. I loved her, and that's all I ever did."

That's all he ever did, and that's all that ever ruined Chanyeol.

Jonign.

I'm not running away, like you've asked me on previous nights. I'm traveling the world by foot. I wish you can understand that, like in movies when eventually they do. I'm not running away, remember that. I'm going to be lost, just for awhile. And I don't want to be found.

Jongin.

I'm your sister, I wish you could trust me on this. I have a reason. It's simple. A reason that can remain a secret. And just like when mom never came back, I won't be like that. I'll come back. Just on my own.

"She always told me she'd stay. Even if mom screamed. She broke that small trust." Jongin is on the floor, trying to push himself to the brim of tears, but even that he can't do. It's been one month, and this is the day she left. September 11, this was a cursed day for everyone. Her name was forbidden for any other day of any other month, just not on this one. Jongin took it to his most advantage, he dragged Chanyeol and Baekhyun along, taking sips of every alcohol in existence.

In this bowling alley.

But it's not like Chanyeol doesn't want to be dragged. It's not like he didn't want to hear people breaking some restrictions. And the greatest of all, was the mention of her. It was the greatest limit of rebelling, just for everyone that knew her.

"Yoonhae." Chanyeol says. And he smiles. Jongin looks up, as though startled but suddenly realizes that he shouldn't be.

"Why do you think she ran away?" Chanyeol utters the questions not anyone has actually considered before. It was a bad choice of words. Chanyeol knows in himself he just can't find the right things to say, other than she ran away. But this was the thing: she didn't. She didn't run away. She didn't take any clothes, no warning or no apparent reason to.

Why.

"My sister did not run away."

"Then what did she do?" What did she do, everything that can hurt them. Everything that can scar them.

"She left us, but that's not running away." Jongin can sound indenial, when in fact all he says are true. There's a difference between leaving and running away. And Chanyeol can't find it. Maybe it was this. She's living, she's breathing, but doesn't acknowledge that she's doing that with them. She doesn't coexist, anymore.

"Why did she leave... us?" Baekhyun's question is still left unanswered, as it floats amidst stares and sad thinking.

This bowling alley fits less than the infinite amount of miserable people, Chanyeol knows of this now.

Chanyeol looks at the poster. They didn't make her out as how beautiful she really is. She had more than just circles underneath her eyes, there were always those listless glitters inside them, she was trying to be more than what people can see. And the background was white, unlike how Chanyeol remembers where she matched perfectly. With beige sheets and blue gray pillows, she was majestic there, in her most heavenly state. The layer where Chanyeol could see that for her, nothing mattered other than only to talk and stare at the ceiling.

On this poster, they didn't capture that state of her. And it emphasized in big, bold letters,

KIM YOONHAE: MISSING.

Chanyeol squints his eyes at her name, and that word. Not anyone could mention her so easily. Chanyeol listens back to all the things she's said to him. The words that struck him like lightning, the words that struck him like a pin with a full, successful bowling shot. And it caused loud thundering disasters.

'You found me.' These words said in Chanyeol's smallest dreams, it was a lie.

Chanyeol doesn't find Yoonhae, and she doesn't want to be found either.

Oh look at that. Finally, there's proof: dreams don't come true.

Chanyeol.

I guess you've realized one thing.

I'm not burdened by our age. You were nineteen, I was twenty four. I'd love you even if you were fifty. But I guess you've realized one thing.

Sadness can't stay at one place, until you believe otherwise. I wish you'd remember that.